Hortonworks Launches Ambitious Partner Program
Hortonworks, focused on Hadoop, has just announced Hortonworks Partnerworks, a global program to support and enable partners selling and implementing Hortonworks solutions. The company claims to have over 1,500 partners involved today, and the new partner program will give partners increased access to Hortonworks staffers and expertise.
Partnerworks will officially launch in early February, but details on its structure are out now.
Hortonworks says the proram consists of three different programs focused on selling and implementing Hortonworks solutions for customers:
- ISV/IHV program enables independent software and hardware vendors to develop, test, certify, deploy and support joint solutions with Hortonworks' products.
- Consultant program is for consultants and system integrators that offer design, consulting and/or deployment services with Hortonworks' Connected Data Platforms (Data in Motion: Hortonworks DataFlow, and Data at Rest: Hortonworks Data Platform)
- Reseller program is for partners interested in reselling Hortonworks' fulfilled support subscriptions and other services to their customers.
Across these programs, partners can participate in advancing tiers from community involvement to platinum status. Each tier provides a defined path for enablement and certification. Also, Hortonworks says that training, technical support, and sales and marketing resources will guide partners through certification and go-to-market commitments.
On the training front, Hortonworks has experience. Its Hortonworks University focuses on teaching Hadoop skills. We covered the announcement of it here, and Hortonworks officials noted:
"Hortonworks University consists of public, private on-site and live online courses for both developers and administrators. Our courses are role-based and consist of both expert content that leverages Hortonworks deep domain expertise, and hands-on labs that prepares students for the real-world Hadoop scenarios they will face. The labs in particular set Hortonworks apart from other training offerings in the market place. As the creators of much of the Apache Hadoop code, we have an exceptional understanding of the essential Hadoop components. We have spent countless hours applying this expertise to create highly valuable hands-on exercises that enable students to immediately implement what they have learned. We don’t simply 'inform' students. We truly 'enable' them to be successful."
Several of Hortonworks' partners have commented on the Partnerworks program, including these:
"Microsoft has focused on simplifying big data and advanced analytics to give organizations the fastest way to achieve business transformation. Hortonworks has been a critical partner to our success. The newly announced Partnerworks program will further advance our joint collaboration and increase opportunities for customers to transform their data into intelligent action." – Barb Edson, GM, Data Platform, Microsoft
"Hortonworks is a leading Hadoop partner for EMC, working lock step with our engineering and solutions teams to certify and integrate EMC's Data Lake technologies, including Isilon® and Elastic Cloud Storage™, to run on Hortonworks Data Platform. Through our best-in-class joint solutions, our customers benefit from massively scalable big data storage with robust analytics. The Hortonworks Partnerworks program expands opportunities to deliver the solutions customers need most." – Christine Fraser, Senior Vice President, Technology Alliances, EMC Corporation
"Through our joint engineering efforts, Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Hortonworks are working with customers to solve the most challenging data problems. Partnerworks will further enable our coordinated worldwide go-to-market efforts and together, we are bringing to bear modern data architectures for customers." – Don Jones, Vice President, ISV Alliances, Hewlett Packard Enterprise
For more about Partnerworks, you can visit http://hortonworks.com/partners/